![]() Sara de Vos has joined a crowd of onlookers at Berckhey, a small fishing village, because word has spread that a whale has beached itself there. Let us now move back in time, as author Dominic Smith then does, to Holland in the spring of 1636. But Marty’s biggest misfortune is that during the festivities of this particular night in November the original painting has been stolen and replaced by a meticulous fake. It has been claimed over the years that the painting brings misfortune – none of its previous owners have lived beyond the age of 60. ![]() It is the sole known painting by Sara de Vos, one of 25 or so women painters from the era, little of whose work has survived. Above his bed hangs a painting from the Dutch Golden Age, bought by an ancestor 300 years ago direct from the Guild of St Luke in Holland. The food is elegantly lavish: “A long table has been set up with flutes of Champagne, tiers of profiteroles, ramekins of crème brulee, Belgian chocolates.” The guests are a mixture of uptown lawyers, surgeons, CEOs, philanthropist wives, a retired diplomat. The occasion is a $200-a-head charity dinner for the Aid Society. We are in Manhattan, New York City, at the home of Rachel and Marty de Groot. ![]() ![]() Let us begin, as this book does, in November of 1957. ![]()
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